Shoes Too Big To Fill
by cannedcorndog
Summary: Morgan Stark has suffered a lot since her father's death, but everything changes when she runs into Steve Roger's grandson who just so happens to be named Tony. Morgan feels like everyone expects too much of her and Tony is determined to show her why that isn't such a bad thing. (Is this blasphemy?)
1. Chapter 1

You see, whenever people ask me, "_What's your name?" _I always say the same thing. My name is Morgan Stark. Of course, nobody cares when I say _Morgan_, but then I say _Stark_, and the press is all over me, asking stupid questions: "_Ms. Stark, what's it like to be the daughter of a billionaire?"_ Easy, let's see, the man was dead before I turned five, yeah it's great. "_Ms. Stark, will you be taking over your father's enterprise anytime soon?_" (and yes, this question always shows up) See, the thing nobody can get across their thick skulls is that I don't want a billion-dollar company in my name. I mean, thanks, Dad, for the money, but I'm not sure I'm able to walk in your footsteps.

People are always expecting things of me, big things, as my mom always says, but why can't I just be a normal sixteen year old? Mom thinks that I'm going to save the world like my dad did, but I don't exactly see that happening anytime soon. Sure, a memorial in my name would be nice, but no, not worth it. What good is a memorial if you're dead?

Anyways, it's been a long time since Dad died, and you're probably wondering what happened to everyone else. Let's see, Peter Parker basically became the next Iron Man (good for him), Sam and Bucky did their own thing. Clint and Lana raised their family and everyone lived happily ever after, right? Wrong. So dead wrong. I'm not happy. Neither is my mom. She throws herself into work and I go to school with my teachers always acting super critical about my science projects. "_I never thought I'd see the day that Tony Stark's daughter builds a paper mache volcano for her science project…"_they would say. Did I ask to be the daughter of a super accomplished guy? No. Did I ask for him to die? No. Do I still love him? Yes, three-thousands to be exact.

The point is, everyone expects too much of me because my last name is Stark and I just want to be my own person. I've taken several robotics classes and I've got to be honest with you, I have no idea what I'm doing. So, if you're reading this thinking, _Morgan Stark, you ungrateful little piece of..._yeah, thanks, you can leave now. See, I'm used to that, but this is _my_ story, not my dad's, _mine_. M-I-N-E-mine. So, if you want to know what happened to me, keep reading and you'll figure out…

It was probably October, I mean, it makes the most sense, right? Orange leaves scampering across the yard. Yeah, definitely October. Of course, I wish it were _Summer_. Then, I would get to stay home and do...let's see...absolutely nothing, but nope, it's October, and even the daughters of billionaires can't get out of it, which means: I have to go to school. _(Thanks Mom.)_ So what do I do? Well, first, I roll out of bed and complain until Mom comes in and tells me to hurry up. Of course, she's wearing her usual slacks and white blouse, which means she has to work again. Who am I kidding? She has to work every day. After all, Dad's business isn't going to run itself. So, I get up and get dressed in my usual: jeans and a flannel, and this is when most people would say something along the lines of: "_Morgan Stark, you'd better make yourself look presentable for your father's sake."_ Correction: Tony Stark was not my _father_, he was my dad. Fathers were those old people who gave you useless advice-too formal. Dads were the people who played with you when you wanted them to. Thanks Dad.

After I grab my school stuff, I head into the kitchen. Speaking of which, Mom hasn't made breakfast in ages it seems like. There used to be orange juice sitting out on the table, not anymore. Just some salt and pepper-hardly breakfast material. My mom rushes about the house, searching for something.

"Morgan, have you seen my laptop bag?"

Why would _I _have seen it. Mom's eyes are pretty much glued to that thing half the time.

"Nope." I say, looking for the orange juice that is conveniently placed in the door of the fridge.

I pour myself a glass, Mom looking at me as if she was disappointed. Heck, that's the same look she's been giving me since I turned thirteen and dropped the bomb when I said: "_I don't want Dad's company." _She had taken it as a joke at first, but when she figured out I was serious (which I am), she didn't seem too happy. Anyways, now she feels like _she's _got to do all the work, but I know she tries to be a good mom for me. She takes me to work with her on Saturdays, because that's obviously what every teenager wants to be doing on a Saturday night.

"Found it!" she calls, collecting the rest of her things, "You going to drive yourself?"

I fumble in my pocket for the keys to my car. I jangle them in front of my mom, but she's preoccupied, now searching for her coat. Now, I _do_ know where that is, but she didn't ask me, did she? When I got my permit, Mom offered to buy me a corvette. The dream car of any reckless teen like myself. Only, I didn't want it. Selfishly unselfish, right? The thing is, when you have lots of money, people treat you differently. They don't look at you as a friend, but as a fountain of endless money, and while I _can_ pretty much buy anything, I told the people at school that my mom started a savings account with the money instead, and they bought that lie. I'm just glad that juniors are incredibly stupid. So long story short, I end up buying a truck, right, like a really nice truck? No. A lame old pickup with faded blue paint and a scratched up rearview mirror. But, Mom's probably embarrassed to see me in it. She once said that I looked like a...how did she phrase it? A hick. Couldn't really argue with that, now could I.

I walk towards the door, tugging my coat a little tighter around me.

"Bye, Mom." I say before running out.

Just letting you know, she hasn't said _bye_ back in at least four months. Supposedly, it's a busy time for the company.

The pickup starts like any old truck, sputtering gas out its back, growling upon ignition. I turn out of our driveway and through the woods, glad that Dad chose a pretty remote spot to live...except, now, it's usually filled with tourists who want to take pictures of Tony Stark's home. One thing I want-a fence.

Anyways, I drive to the school which isn't a terribly long drive from our house. Let's just say that I'm not exactly the best driver, so when I almost run into some people, I see a lot of the tall finger thing going on. Today is no different as I drive to the parking spot that's usually mine. Only, today, another car is parked there. _Curses_...last I could recall, no one parked here but me. Heck, the spot practically has my name on it. Luckily for me, there's a spot right next to it, and if I drive with enough precision, I just might be able to edge my truck close enough to the other car's door so that they can't fully open it. Call me what you will, but they asked for it.

I turn the key back and grab my school stuff before getting out, jumping onto the black road. Just to make sure, I walk over to the other side to see if I left the car next to me enough room. They probably have a good five inches. You've gotta admit though, getting that close without any damage should be recognized as a skill.

I walk to my first class, which also happens to be my least favorite: Robotics ironically: A program founded a year after Iron Man died, commemorating his heroics. Of course, after our teacher said that, he looked at me for a long time, singling me out as a prodigy. Hate to break it to you, but prodigy's aren't really born, they're molded. Someone smarter than me said that once.

The class drags on, and as usual, Mr. White asks _me_ the answer to nearly every question. I answer most of them correctly. After all, Mom's practically drilled this stuff into my head. It's as if they won't let me do anything with my future except robotics and taking care of Dad's business when, in all reality, I don't want to.

And of course, we have another project due by the end of the week: creating a robot of sorts, not very specific and I happen to know that Mr. White only wants to see what the daughter of Tony Stark can do with no restrictions. I'll tell him what I can do: I can go to my Dad's work, find a spare suit, and bring it to school. Sound fair?

Then there's second period: History. Why we have a class about dead people is completely beyond me, but Mrs. Webb seems particularly thrilled today, which is interesting because she's usually a sociopath. And what do you know, there's a tall, blonde boy standing next to her, and let's just say that the guy is built like the Statue of David...only not naked.

"Class, we have a new student joining us. This is Tony...Tony Rogers, and get this, he's the grandson of Captain Steve Rogers, isn't that right, Tony?" she says with a smile that's all teeth.

"Yes, ma'am. After Captain America stayed back in time, he and my grandmother had a baby girl. He named her Natasha. Natasha got married to my dad, and my grandfather insisted I be named Tony."

_Wow, good for you_...I think. At least this way, people will stop paying attention to _me_. But, Mrs. Webb just has to say something.

"Well isn't that funny? We have another student here who's a daughter of a hero. Tony Stark's girl, Morgan."

She pointed towards me and the whole class turns in unison as if my dad being Tony Stark was news to them. _Seriously?!_

I give a slight wave, trying not to confront the fact that there's an empty seat next to me.

"Why don't you sit next to her. I'm sure you two can find something in common."

Tony nods and follows her finger to the seat that's right next to me.

"I'm Tony." he says, holding out a hand.

_So you've mentioned…_

"I'm Morgan." I say stupidly, shaking his unnaturally warm hand.

"So you're Stark's girl, right?"

_Here we go…_

"Yeah...so?"

"So, you're going to take over the business here soon? Maybe even become the next Iron Man...Well...Iron Girl I guess…"

"Last I checked, Peter Parker already filled that position."

"Oh."

Tony Rogers didn't speak to me the rest of class, nor I to him, but he follows me to English, another class I hate. Come to think of it, I hate pretty much all of my classes.

The hours pass by painlessly for the most part, and I'm just lucky that Ms. Hyres wanted Tony close to _her_ desk..._yeah, sorry, Hyres, but you're a little too old to be hitting on seventeen year olds…_ Thankfully, most of the class seems distracted by his presence. Tony Stark may have been a Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, but Steve Rogers was Captain America…'Nuff said. Anyhow, hopefully, my teachers will lower my standards and start focusing on the guy who stole my dad's name. Sure, I should be touched that Steve Rogers decided to name his daughter after the Black Widow, and his grandson after Iron Man, but did Captain Rogers know that his grandson and Tony Stark's daughter would be sharing classrooms for so far two class periods? Where did this guy come from anyways?

"Morgan?"

I look up at Mrs. Hyres who is tapping her foot impatiently.

"Yeah?"

_What'd I do this time?_

"Are you with us?"

_Nope_. "Yes."

"What is your assignment?"

Crap, well, knowing Mrs. Hyres, it will probably be a writing assignment.

"...Writing?..." I ask.

"Writing what?"

"-About one of the Avengers." finished Tony, looking at me with his bright blue eyes.

Thank you Tony.

"Yeah...that." I say weakly.

Mrs. Hyres looks at Tony, but she doesn't look mad, in fact, she doesn't look any way but mesmerized by Tony. What is it with blondes anyways?

The rest of the day passed by slowly. I didn't have any more classes with Tony and during lunch, he found himself at home with the jocks who probably wanted to recruit him for football. After all, with a body like that, Tony would be a one man army.

After school, I walk to my parking space, completely forgetting about my proximity to the other car. This shouldn't be a problem, except for the fact that Tony Rogers is right there, looking at me skeptically. Of course, it just happens to be _his _car.


	2. Chapter 2

About a year ago, I discovered that the universe hates me. Why _me_ of all people-I don't know. Anyhow, the fact that I just disrespected Tony Rogers' car is probably just a really bad case of karma. _This should be interesting…_

"Is that your truck?" he asks, crossing his arms, his huge, meaty arms. _Curses, don't be thinking about that…_

"Yeah…" I say, looking down at my shoes. "something the matter?"

"No...I just would have thought that with your dad being a billionaire, you would have...you know, a nice car or something." he says, a light in his eyes.

Here we go again with the "_your dad has money, buy yourself something nice...your dad was successful, try being more like him. _News flash: I'm not Tony Stark. I'm not Pepper Potts. I'm me, Morgan. At Least he didn't seem too upset about my parking job, even though it was extremely obvious that I did it on purpose.

"Look, I'm not my dad. And as much as you do-gooders try to get me to be more like him, I'm still just plain old me." I say, forcing a fake smile.

Tony nods, and for the first time, I think someone's finally gonna lay off the whole: _Walk in your dad's footsteps thing_. Nope, sorry, Peter Parker is doing a fine job of that by himself. Heck, I won't be surprised if Mom gives him the company here soon.

"No," Tony finally says, "But we're all counting on you to be _better_."

For once in my life, I don't have a snarky comeback, and now, it's too late to recover from the fact that Tony Rogers has caught me off guard by simply what? Giving me a new response? Either way, it changes nothing.

I get into my truck and drive away, all the while looking over my shoulder, not to watch my surroundings necessarily, but to get a good look at Tony Rogers, the guy whos grandpa was my dad's best friend. _We're counting on you to be better?_ What does that mean? How am _I_, a sixteen year old girl who has no real hobbies, supposed to surpass one of the greatest heroes who ever lived? Answer: I can't. You see, that's the thing about 'oh so holy' people like Tony, they say something to try to get you to think, and leave your thinking. But I can't really get mad at Tony for being a nice guy or whatever, so that's that. I imagine that he has it easy. Steve Rogers didn't have the biggest ego. Instead, he was just known for being an incredibly nice and righteous patriot. Tony Stark on the other hand…

When I get home, my mom's not there, as usual. There's a note on the fridge though.

_Had to work late again, see you later tonight.-Mom_

The key word here is: _again_. Mom working late hasn't exactly been an 'every so often' kind of thing, it's been a continual habit, an addiction really. Mom always said that Dad used to work a lot until they had me, and then, I became the most important thing to him...just not important enough to not die for, if you know what I mean. Even though I was young when he died, I still remember him as always being there for me when he was around. We would have picnics outside, next to the lake. He would make up ridiculous stories to make me go to sleep, and he would always be willing to play with me...but I'm kind of past all of that. Emphasis on: _kind of_.

I look at my phone, reading a new email that just popped up on the lock screen.

_Karen Webb: 3:31 PM:))Your history grade is down to a D, stay after class tomorrow._

…

Okay, I admit it, I'm not _the best student_.In fact, I'm far from it. I can do a little bit of English, some science, but no math, and definitely no history. It's not that I don't enjoy learning about dead people, but...I don't enjoy learning about dead people, sorry. My mom once said that we learn from the mistakes other people made in the past, but what did she know? Didn't most people who worked too much end up stressed and apart from their kids? _That_ was history...or psychology, one or the other.

Anyways, so my history grade is...how would Mom put it? _Unacceptable_. Because we can't have a genius' daughter failing her classes, can we? Believe me, I tried really hard on the test last week, but you know what? The words kind of just went into one ear and out the other. Not my fault if my brain doesn't exactly retain information the right way. See, that was another thing. I've got ADHD, so basically, while Mrs. Webb is trying to teach us about World War Whatever it was, I'm over here, thinking about how the pattern on the ceiling is symmetrical, and hey, that kid's doodling a cartoon on his paper, and-was that a siren?

Yeah, paying attention isn't really my thing. Anyways, I already know what this is about. Mrs. Webb will probably want to find me a tutor, which means that I'm going to be stuck with a historian after school every day. Sounds fun, right? I hate studying with my mom, but more so, I hate studying with a total nerd. _Overachievers…_

So, you're probably wondering what I, Morgan Stark, am doing after school while my mom is trapped at work. Easy-I'm sitting on the sofa, staring at the ceiling, trying to make shapes with the knots on the wood. _There's a penguin...there's a cat...there's a house…_ As you can see, my life is full of fun.(and yes, I do this every day)

A couple hours pass (By now, I've gone over every knot in the wood four or five times) and I hear a car pulling into our driveway. That would be Mom, at least, I hope, but who knows, it may be another tourist who wants to take a picture of where Tony Stark was living. I sit up and look out the window: Mom. Mildly disappointing actually. She looks happy though. There's a newfound glow in her eyes, and I can't help but wonder: is she actually in a good mood?

She unlocks and opens the door, her face all lit up and radiant.

"What's up with you?" I ask, resuming my stare at the ceiling.

"Great news!" she says enthusiastically, "I talked it over with the board and-" she stopped, looking as though she might burst.

"And?"

"And they say that you can run the company when you turn eighteen. Until then, we'll have to get you ready."

A snort escapes me, how many times were we going to go through this: _I do not want to run dad's company period._ I've only said it like twenty times, but does anybody listen to me, no. I roll my eyes to the back of my head.

"Mom. I don't want to run Stark Industries."

"Well, of course, not _now_, but-"

"No, not _ever_." I say, a little louder than I should have.

She stops.

"Morgan. This is your dad's legacy, and I'm not going to be able to run it for much longer. We've talked about letting Parker take over, but the board thinks that a Stark would look best for the company...that's you."

"I thought that _I _was dad's legacy...I mean, I'm his kid, right?"

She doesn't speak.

"See, you're all expecting me to take over Stark Industries, when I really don't want to. I get it, Stark Industries has to have a face, but I'm not sure that the public wants to see the face of an eighteen year old girl who's failing history."

Crap, shouldn't have said that much. Cursed mouth.

"You're failing?! She asks, concern lacing her voice.

This should be fun to explain.

"Mrs. Webb wants to see me after class tomorrow. She'll probably set me up with another tutor, which means that I won't be home until five."

"Right, and then you'll get home, eat dinner, and I'll start running you over how to manage Stark Industries."

She's seriously still on this. Remember the good old days when no meant no?

"Mom…" I start.

"This isn't a discussion, Morgan!"

I sit up and look at her. Mom's usually a pretty collective person, but she's obviously at the end of her rope. It's hard to remember that I'm not the only one who was affected by Dad's death. Mom doesn't talk about it though. Sometimes I bring memories up, about how things used to be, and she leaves Suddenly, she has to use the bathroom.

"Okay." I say weakly.

"Okay, _what?_"

"Okay-I'll try to-"

"Not _try_"

It feels like I'm being pressured to do something I don't want to do, but do I really have another option?

"Okay-I'll run Dad's company when I turn eighteen."

Mom says nothing. She doesn't know how hard it was to get those words out, to commit to doing something when I become an adult. The last thing she tells me is that she's going to bed. Meanwhile, I'm sitting on the couch still, sobs threatening to rack my body. It's not a big deal though, right? I mean, plenty of kids are forced to do things that they don't want to do.

When I turned thirteen, Mom tried to get me to _want_ to run the company. She talked excitedly as she mentioned all the wonderful things I would get to do, all the happiness I would feel, but in my defense, _she's_ working at Stark Industries, and she seems everything _but_ happy, or maybe that was just part of being an adult when your husband dies.

So now, I'm stuck. I mean, I've always felt stuck, but now, it's more real than ever. I've got two years of hard work and studying, and then, my dad's business becomes mine, but Mom and the staff will probably be doing most of the heavy lifting, so I'll just be there for what? Pictures and interviews? Sounds like a pretty bright future. There are just some things that money can't buy happiness being the most prominent, but who cares about happiness when you've got money?


End file.
